PPFF #115

Previously I briefly thought about summarizing/paraphrasing this fascinating article with a comparative analysis of Nietzsche and Wilde and I wanted to introduce La Rochefoucauld to the mix (as I’ve quoted all three before in earlier PPFFs) but such a joyous or burdensome task, for which my limited intelligence would have betrayed me, was not going to be established on one Thursday evening. So here I offer a light alternative; a rundown of proper names of common everyday punctuation/typographical markers we have no idea what to call; for those of you who’ve been following PPFFs in the past, you’ll recognize a couple that have already been covered.

~ No, it’s not a ‘squiggle’. It actually has a name. It’s a ‘tilde’ with the ‘e’ pronounced as the ‘e’ in ‘Porsche’.

‽ Interrobang (interrogative bang – repeat)

& Ampersand (‘and per-se-and’ – repeat)

¶ Pilcrow (paragraph marker)

^ Caret (pronounced ‘carrot’)

Wait. It’s not over yet. Let me write a little bit about the origin of ‘tilde’. It’s actually interesting. It comes from the word ‘titulus’, originally from the Latin word of the same letters, meaning label or inscription of any kind, but in certain contexts it meant a sign bearing the condemned man’s name and crime, attached to the wooden post they’d also be tied or nailed to. Also, you’d be interested to know ‘titulus’ evolved to become the word ‘title’.